


To the End of the Universe

by lesbianjanecrocker (fumiko6)



Series: Fragments and Passages [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Earth C (Homestuck), F/F, Gen, Loneliness, Not Canon Compliant - The Homestuck Epilogues, Not Epilogue Compliant, Outer Space, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sadstuck, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21628876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fumiko6/pseuds/lesbianjanecrocker
Summary: Sound should not travel in space. That was the first sign that this universe was not real.Two young gods find themselves alone in an empty corner of a new world.
Relationships: Jade Harley & Aradia Megido, Jade Harley & Loneliness, Jade Harley/Aradia Megido
Series: Fragments and Passages [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1565194
Comments: 11
Kudos: 22





	To the End of the Universe

Sound should not travel in space. That was the first sign that this universe was not real.

* * *

As you move further and further away from Earth C you notice something akin to static interference increasing. You have attempted to quantify it: number of visible distorted visual elements per cubic meter, or something like that. You name it the distortion score, or something like that. This quantity increases with what seems to be a sigmoidal curve, with the inflection point calculated to be a few hundred lightyears out (right, you can travel faster than light without any of the expected side effects, another sign of this universe's impossibility), creating a bubble encompassing the nearest stars but not the millions of still visible stars further out. Those stars must be non-physical simulations. Eventually you start to notice the distortions appear within your own body, and that is when you must turn back. But every time you go a few million kilometers further. Every time you disappear a little more.

* * *

On one of your excursions you were joined. It was entirely an accident at first. The meeting was on a planet in the orbit of a nearby G-type star (it wasn't recognizable as any star from your Earth (you can't bring yourself to call it Earth B), and you never bothered to learn Earth C's names for them), well before the inflection point. You were investigating its planetary system for signs of life. There was a planet in the habitable zone, a small rocky world with gravity at 1.2g, with liquid water and a thick atmosphere of inert gases. As you've come to expect, the planet was barren. Nothing, not even a trace of organic compounds in the clear water (by the way, you can act as a corporeal mass spectrometer now, one of the relatively unheralded benefits of godhood).

You were the only life form for lightyears. It was lonely, but not that much more than usual.

On the gray rocky surface of the world, you saw a red figure in the distance.

They were a troll. They were alone. They approached you.

You had vague recollections of said troll from back in the desperate hours of the game, now faded after so many years.

"Hi, Jade! What are you doing here?", asked Aradia Megido.

"Oh, um..." You had to adjust your mind back into the space of interhuman-wait, inter...species? inter-sentient? and you completely forgot whatever you were going to say.

"I'm not sure if you remember me but I'm Aradia!" She walks closer. You see her smile. "You're Jade Harley, right? I was wondering where you've been!"

"Oh, um, sorry... I have to do something..."

You flew away. You weren't sure why.

If you teleported, she couldn't have followed you. As you flew at much less than the speed of light, you realize that she wasn't following you. You speed up.

She probably didn't decontaminate after herself, as you've always done. You wondered what microbes trolls carry, whether any survived the journey through space and time, whether any could colonize this new world, and what forms they might evolve into.

* * *

It's not that you don't have any friends on Earth C. It's definitely not that. You have a new island to call your own. More food and material goods than any human could need. More books, plants, and animals than you've ever had back on the old Earth. A connection to a fiber-optic backbone, a supercomputing cluster, and all sorts of alchemized scientific apparatuses, for unraveling the mysteries of this physical universe in which you happen to reside. And you have a huge residence built all by yourself with ample room for anyone to visit, empty since the sprites dissipated, loaded with the detritus of various expeditions and experiments.

It's not as if you don't have any friends on Earth C.

* * *

"So, um, did you have science back on Alternia?"

Aradia has followed you onto another expedition, this time to a planet covered in ice, with liquid water heated by geothermal vents beneath the ice sheets. Again there is no sign of life, but there are some organic compounds bubbling from the vents, kilometers below. Maybe this could be the beginning of abiogenesis?

She said that it was another accident, but you don't believe her. She has time powers. She's probably manipulating the timeline right now to achieve whatever her nefarious goals are. Though they probably aren't too nefarious, you still have no idea why she's following you.

This time you did not fly away. You're not sure why. But the first thing you told her was that she needed to remove any trace of microbes from herself before visiting a new world. She didn't understand why.

Aradia only laughs. "I was the lowest caste. I wasn't schoolfed any of that."

"You didn't learn about cells or bacteria or DNA or proteins or evolution?"

"We didn't need to learn that stuff. What good would it do if we were all supposed to die for the empress?"

"Oh. Sorry.... Um, do you want to learn about science? Well, maybe I won't be the best teacher since I never had a teacher, but we can try! I would be fascinated to learn what you would think of all of this stuff!"

"Sure! Sounds interesting!"

It is then that you discover that Aradia has the equivalent of a first-grade understanding of basic quantitative concepts. You get frustrated, even as she seems to take it all in stride, because after all, she's been through far worse, as she says.

In the end you just end up giving her some basic textbooks. She's learned how to read English somehow. The books will probably teach her better than you ever could.

* * *

You are overlooking the edge of the universe and it is approximately what you expected.

Well, it's not exactly the actual "edge" of the universe. The universe doesn't actually have an edge, as far as you can tell, instead asymptotically decreasing in fidelity and reality as the distance increases from Earth C, equally in all directions. The Edge is just what you've taken to calling the inflection point of the sigmoid, the point where the second derivative of the distortion score passes from positive to negative. It's where approximately half of all space is taken up by the distortions. You look down at your hands, and see patches of skin fade in and out of reality, and the colors on your fingers blending into each other. You touch your dress, and feel something like a blunt burst of static electricity. Not a jolt, just a tingle, but deep and endless.

But one thing about all of this is strange. For some reason your thoughts are perfectly lucid even as your physical brain is half disintegrated. This is evidence that some sort of dualism is true here, that minds exist in a separate realm from space. That's interesting, but not exactly a novel finding. It's obvious if you really think about it. Which you have.

* * *

It is the third time you have gone on an excursion with Aradia. Somehow she knew that you would be here, on this rocky world orbiting 1.2AU from a G-type star with a 1.5atm nitrogen atmosphere and oceans of liquid water. You do not expect to discover life. And you do not, again not even a trace of organic compounds. Yet still you search, for what purpose?

Aradia has learned quickly in the weeks or months since your last encounter. She has at least a middle school knowledge of science and mathematics now. It seems that she's learned about Alternian biology too from her friends; on the molecular level Alternian life is quite similar to Earth's, with the same building blocks of amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids, though the differences diverge quickly from there on. 

"So why do you care so much about not leaving any trace behind?", she asks. "If all of these planets are lifeless, isn't it better to spread life there?"

"You're an archaeologist, aren't you? Didn't you learn not to contaminate your dig sites?"

"This is different. We already know there's no life on these planets, so there's no use in trying to protect what isn't there."

"We can't know for sure!"

"You've already stopped at a few hundred different sites on each of these planets!"

You take a deep breath. "What about preserving the landscape and atmosphere? Do you really think that we should have the power to change it all?"

Aradia flies upwards. You follow her over the barren basalt cliffs, the wind-swept dunes of golden sand, the shoreline of broken rocks, all beneath the blue-ish sky and yellow sun.

"If anyone should have the power to change this universe," she says, "it's you. You did create all of this, after all." She stretches her arms around, wind billowing over her sleeves. "And I would like to see what would happen if we brought life to these planets! We can speed up the process by millions of years and watch evolution unfold!"

The dead scientists back on Earth would have been so envious of your ability. Anyone would, realistically speaking. Of all of your abilities, of everything you have. People would go to war, would kill and betray all their loved ones to gain a fraction of your power. But...

"I can't just *decide* to do things!", you shout, more forcefully than perhaps you should. "It's just, it's just..."

"Just what?"

"I don't know! I just feel like it's not right to..." You were about to say "play god", but you've realized how silly that would be.

"I know what you mean," she says, even though she obviously doesn't. "It's hard dealing with change. It's like everything you knew just disappeared one day, isn't it?"

By the time she says this, you have already blasted off (metaphorically) from the planet. As usual, you can see the trace of Alternian microbes that Aradia left behind. Why do you care so much about these, even? Do they even matter? Does anything you do here?

"Why are you even following me?", you ask, as Aradia flies not far behind, within audio-visual distance.

"Right now, or in general? Right now it's because we're both headed back to Earth C. In general, well, maybe it's because the universe can be a lonely place sometimes. It would be nice to have more friends out here." A pause. "And I like learning new things! You're one of the best people to learn from."

"Oh, um, thanks!", you say, not knowing how else to respond.

You stay silent after that, and so does Aradia. Some time later you separate without realizing it. Then you are alone on your island once more.

* * *

Sometimes people contact you. People whom you should know. Your friends. They worry about you. Say they love you. Say they're worried and concerned, why don't you talk to us anymore, where have you been, are you still doing okay. You see evidence of their visits on your island. Presents. Letters. Footprints. They accumulate like the rest of your detritus. More reminders. More memories you try to forget.

You've been making sure to be in space more often. The distance is good. It's harder to follow you up here.

Once you've been alone for long enough, it's easier to keep being alone. Loneliness changes you. You don't think about people anymore. Your interests have always been prone to solitude, but now they've become even more so. You forget how to have a conversation, forget how to act like a human being. But it doesn't matter; you aren't exactly human anyways.

At one point you realize that as the Witch of Space, it is perfectly within the domain of your powers to modify the balance of neurotransmitters in your brain *in vivo* in order to make yourself feel better. Or to modify your synaptic receptors in a coordinated fashion in order to generate virtually any emotion. Armed nothing but a few neuroscience textbooks, you could make yourself happy, and it would in no way be different from the emotions generated by a supposedly "genuine" experience. Or would it? You do know that in this universe, part of the mind exists separately from the body. So such an engineering scheme might very well have no effect, or perhaps an unforeseen but most likely highly deleterious effect. On the other hand, you know of individuals who take antidepressants that work on the same principles, though much more coarse-grained. In conclusion, you have no idea, and you certainly aren't keen on using animal models or human subjects.

But all of that is no more than an idle musing. None of it matters; you are never going to break apart and reassemble your brain. If you can't even bring yourself to talk to your best friends, how can you bring yourself to do something so drastic as that? One of these tasks is easier, but it is unclear which.

* * *

You find yourself amidst what would have been called the Oort Cloud, on the edge of interstellar space, for really no good reason. Aradia is here too, for whatever reason she has decided upon.

"This universe has all the same physical constants as our old universe, as far as I can quantify. But it's very different somehow and I don't know why."

You are not sure if you are ready to recapitulate the philosophical debates of the 20th century, but Aradia has started it. She asked you what you were doing out here (you were avoiding Roxy), so of course you deflected by bringing up your scientific obsession. Then, one question after another, you ended up at this topic.

"The old universe didn't have an end, not in the physical sense. But this universe, it probably does."

"What do you mean?", she asks.

"There's this sphere centered at Earth C, that after we move past it, the universe starts becoming less real. It doesn't make any sense from a physical standpoint, but it's there."

Aradia smiles widely. "I've found it too. Why don't we go beyond it and see, together?"

"We can't..."

"Why not? It's not going to be so bad," Aradia says. "No matter what happens, I don't think we're allowed to die yet."

"Maybe it'll be worse than dying. Maybe we'll end up trapped in... limbo? Oblivion? Something like that. Not being able to do anything for the rest of eternity. Not being able to go back to Earth, talk to anyone else..."

"I think the universe has better uses for us." Aradia is still smiling, but you have no idea what her smile is supposed to convey. "Anyway, we'll stay together, okay? So we won't be trapped alone!"

* * *

You find yourself beyond the edge, and going further than you have ever gone before. Your reality dissolves more and more.

Teleportation does not work unless you know your destination. So you're traveling several million times the speed of light. Aradia hangs behind you, moving at the same velocity. You begin to flicker and fade away as the edge recedes in the distance. She remains physically steady for longer, but soon she begins to fade away as well.

You don't exactly see anymore, your vision just a garble of garish light. There is no longer sound. But you can still *feel*. You can *feel* Aradia's thoughts intersecting with your own, comprehensible despite her being an alien.

"You knew all about this," you think. "Why did you lead me here? Why did you follow me all this time pretending you didn't know any better? So it was just for your long-term plans? Just like how you started off the whole sburb chain of events in the first place? Everything with you is plans and machinations, everything you say is inevitable but is it really?"

"Yes, but," she replies. "I'm not following the path that the universe has laid out for me anymore. I am the path of the universe now. And this is the one path in which you are not alone :D"

"But that's so megalomaniacal! That's like playing dice with the universe! And all to play an elaborate joke on me?"

"It's not a joke at all! And it's the opposite of playing dice with the universe because I know exactly what will happen :D"

"But isn't it an improper use of your power? And why me of all people?"

"You've been moving by shrinking the universe around you so you're one to talk!"

"But why me when you could have literally anyone else? Why aren't you with your other friends? What's the point?"

"It's all part of the fate of the universe!"

Your thoughts and hers increasingly merge. You can't stop moving, can't pull back to safety. You feel your physical forms intertwining, as the universe no longer exists. You no longer have eyes, but the final visual sense beamed to your disembodied mind is a field of pure white.

* * *

You find yourself awake in the middle of space, blanketed by starlight. You can feel your body. Nothing has changed, nothing noticeable, anyway. You sense that this is the furthest point within the bubble from any stellar body, the loneliest point in this universe, yet for once you are not alone.

Aradia is stationary relative to your inertial reference frame. Her red robes are unruffled, her hair and skin and horns perfectly kept. She is smiling. Her smile conveys a different emotion from before, but you still don't know what that emotion is. You suppose you'll find out eventually.

"We're, um, friends now, right?", she asks.

"Yeah. I guess we are."

* * *

Sound should not exist in space. But neither should life. And yet, here you are. And you are not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> For background on space contamination, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
> 
> The arc of this story felt extremely similar to the arc of my previous story, and even some of the stories for other fandoms before that... I'll try to do something different next time. No promises.


End file.
